Mr. Frankenstein

That first baseball season as a head coach had its ups and downs.  Beyond putting together a schedule, getting equipment, and scheduling a place to play games, I had to find a place and time to practice.  What I ended up with was the auxiliary gym after the girls' basketball team had finished their practice.  That meant we practiced after six each night.  That really wasn't really the problem.  The problem was that the area was too small to really do anything that resembled baseball.  As soon as the weather allowed, we went outside.

Those practices were all over the place.  Again, we had no diamond, so I would have to scout out an area of land where there was enough space to replicate a ball diamond.  If possible, I wanted that area to be an actual ball diamond.  More often than not, we were able to use the softball diamond at City Utilities Park.  No matter where we practiced, I would lose at least one player who went to the wrong place.

Eventually, we made it to the first games of that season.  I had scheduled us to go on a spring trip to southern Indiana during spring break.  We would play five games against three different schools on three days.  Two days would be doubleheaders. All that I needed was a plan on how to house the guys and feed them.

I had inherited a bus driver who was a devoted North Side sports fan.  He had been a bus driver for Fort Wayne Community Schools.  In retirement, he dedicated himself to driving bus for the teams at North.  I came to know him pretty well during football season as we loaded and unloaded the bus.  His name was Carl Frankenstein.

Now if there was ever anyone who could not be judged by his name, Carl was that man.  Sure, he was a very tall man.  He had a very distinguishable face, but the smile that was always there let you know that this guy loved people.  And people loved him.  He had two loves in his life: North Side athletics and his wife, so wherever he went with a North Side team, his wife was in the seat behind him.

When I approached Carl about driving for the trip, his smile became bigger than ever.  It was like I had awarded him with a Hall of Fame nomination.  Before I knew it, he and his wife had lined up tents and a campground in a central location to the three schools.  They made sandwiches, cooked chili and froze it to store in ice chests, baked cookies, and generally do all the things that I hadn't even considered.

I remember playing the games, and I remember that we won 3 and lost 2.  I remember that my first baseman, Frank Thomas, was able to mark his presence in the locker room as the first black student to shower at the one facility after being told that he was the first black to play on that field.  I remember that the one night we almost froze to death when the temperature dipped below freezing.

But what I remember most of all is Carl and his wife.  They were my scorekeepers.  When we needed to be somewhere, they made sure that we got there on time.  When we needed food, it was ready for us.  That kind of dedication caused the team to feel that they weren't just a second class program to football and basketball.

A couple of years later, FWCS told Carl that he couldn't drive bus anymore.  Knowing that this would break his heart, I told him that he could still keep book for us.  He did for a while, but his health faltered, so I saw him less and less.   For a while you would see he and his wife at football and basketball games, and when I took over the gymnastics program, they came to some of our meets.

I loved coaching, but those baseball years sometimes were very rough.  What I now realize is that had there been no Carl and Mildred Frankenstein I might not have even made it through the first year.